Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Fight Night in Vegas

I could almost write a book about this one night. As much as I am often the ringleader in my peer groups I was a fly on the wall of this particular group. But let me start at the beginning, I was at Antonio’s house going over things for AlwaysBluff, his apartment was much further along than the previous time I had seen it. He has this killer sound system he was showing off to Michael Binger (who lives down the hall), later his interior designer (Ben) would show up and I congratulated him on a job well done at Antonio’s. It was me, Antonio and some guy named Z that was a pretty hilarious. They were talking about the fight, at this point I didn’t have a ticket and was leaning towards staying at the Bellagio and watching the LSU game while eating room service and I would just try and hook up with either Brandon or Antonio to wind down the night. As Z left Antonio’s he had his car drop me off at the Bellagio.

Just as I was pulling up I got a text message from Brandon saying he had a ring side seat for me. Now I love me some LSU football but hell, how can you turn down ring side seats to a major prize fight? Couple that with the fact of being a fly on the wall with some of the biggest names in poker and my decision was made, I would be going to the fight. Besides LSU doesn’t play in the Big Ten, they will have a big game every week. Manny Pacquiaoys plays in a lot of the high limit games at the Commerce so everyone knows him well, especially the reigning “best poker player in the world” Kenny Tran. It was pretty clear that Kenny and Manny are more than just poker buddies and most of the people with Kenny had heavy action on Manny. When we got in the limos to go the Arena the lineup was poker players and a few guests and friends. While most of the poker players are known to diehards the average fan likely only knows Daniel Negreanu, he and his wife Lori were in our limo. I knew Lori from a few years back; she is still one of the nicest people I have met around the poker scene. While I was trying to take a back seat to everyone she made a point to have Daniel help me when the tickets were getting distributed, she didn’t need to do that but it was nice. Some of the other people in our entourage were Jean Robert Bellande (recently of Survivor China fame), Bruce Parker, and likely our biggest celebrity, celebrity chef Mr. Chow of Mr. Chow’s in L.A., New York, Miami and London. Overall it was a good group.

My seats were directly behind the President of Mandalay Bay and just to the left of Oscar DeLaHoya and Bernard Hopkins. This wasn’t a huge celebrity fight but there were fierce loyalties from both Mexicans and Filipinos. There were a number of fights in the stands that started from the fierce loyalties for their respective countries. To people from the Philippines Manny is bigger than Michael Jordan because at least here in the states we have other icons. Manny is it in the Philippines. The same could be said for three time champ Marco Barrera in Mexico. None of this of course mattered to me; I was sweating the LSU game while enjoying the company of Millie Shiu and her husband Teddy and one of Kenny’s friends named Casey. The under card did give us a pretty good fight but the energy really didn’t come until the Main Event. I watch a lot of fights on PPV but nothing compares to ring side, you actually can see a lot more than you might think and you almost feel a part of the action. I had never seen Manny fight before but man was he impressive, his style is that of a Cobra darting in and out while striking fierce blows. The fight went the distance with Manny really never in jeopardy of losing. There were three rounds that were better than anything I had seen previously. The last 2 rounds for some reason Manny laid it on when clearly he should have laid back, he had the fight won at that point. I could definitely see why he is so popular. I also left impressed with Barrera, he was one intense dude and he hung in there to the very end. Apparently he took his last lost to Manny pretty hard and towards the end he gave Manny a few cheap shots. It was easily the best fight I have seen in a while.

As we left I found out that LSU erased a deficit of 10 points to come back and defeat Florida, which was a little upsetting, when I got back to my room quotes like “the best game of the season” and “this was one for the ages” had me kicking myself. Once we were back at the Bellagio Mr. Chow (that is what I was introduced to him as and that is what people called him all night) arranged for a private dining area at Fix. I talked to Daniel a bit about his new site PokerVT.com, I have been hearing about PokerVT for quite a while and it certainly sounds like it will live up to the hype. Right now there are a lot of training sites but before the Ipod there were a lot of MP3 players too. I expect Daniel will do well with it. Mr. Chow was hilarious with his toasts and he was a genuinely funny guy to be around. I sat between Brandon and Jean Robert and we talked a lot about Jean Robert’s new found celebrity after being on Survivor. The funny thing about it is, before the UIGEA bill Bobby (that is what people call him mostly) would have been able to parlay this Survivor thing into big bucks, now sites are so passive that it will be interesting to see how this turns out for him.

The star of the show however was Kenny Tran, with apologies to Daniel who is always entertaining. People are beginning to get to know Kenny because of his appearances on the WSOP broadcast but it is pretty clear when you talk to anyone at the moment that Kenny is well thought of in high limit poker circles. I can’t say he did or said any one thing that stood out but his presence is huge; he was also surrounded by a ton of friends which enhanced his aura.

At the end of the night everyone went to Tryst, I initially was going to tag along but decided to hang back and watch highlights of the LSU game. Within about 15 minutes I was asleep, what a lightweight I am.

All in all I had a great time, I turn 39 on Monday and I needed a break. I haven’ had a lot of alone time recently to gather my thoughts, well Vegas certainly cured that. Most of all it was nice to hang out with Antonio and Brandon. They have been friends for a long time, or at least a long time in the poker world. They agreed to join the site mostly out of our friendship and I think they have done a great job. Very soon you will see more of what AlwaysBluff was originally meant to be and I am excited about what is coming up soon.

Stay Tuned.

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